


Oops! All Feelings

by FunkMcLovin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28674591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkMcLovin/pseuds/FunkMcLovin
Summary: Dirk visits Jake for the first time on his tropical island.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35
Collections: DirkJake Big Bang 2k21





	Oops! All Feelings

"Buddy!"

Dirk had heard Jake's voice before, of course, over Skype and the phone, but hearing it unfiltered for the first time in his life was... Different. Good different, but terrifying, too, existential, almost overwhelming. Dirk didn't have time to ruminate on this, however, since he was quickly crushed between Jake's immense arm-meat.

"Dirk, you old spruce! I can't believe you finally made it!" Jake said, pressing the shorter blonde to his chest like one might a beloved stuffed animal.

"Hrk," Dirk responded, to wich Jake sheepishly released the wayward twink. "It's nice to meet you." Dirk spoke after brushing himself off, straighening up to look upon Jake.

"Golly, you're shorter than I anticipated!" Jake said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Dirk had similar sentiments, but in the reverse. Jake was... Huge. It was clear from their online chats that Jake was buff, but much like hearing his voice, Dirk was struck dumb by the man's sheer heft.

"Huh?" Dirk, you fool! Stop thinking of heft and say something intelligible. "You're handsome."

"D'aww, thanks little buddy!" Jake swiftly sprang into action again, this time pinning his long-time long-distance chum in a deadly headlock, applying a noogie to Dirk's expertly coiffed cranium.

Presently, the sordid scene unfolded on the docks of Death Island, the minuscule landmass Jake English called home for most of his life. Raised there by his intrepid grandmother, Jake's upbringing was rife with unimaginable challenges and insurmountable beasts. This was, of course, in contrast to Dirk, who could barely head to the local bodega without hours of mental prep.

"Little?" Dirk squirmed in Jake's grip.

"Sure, bro! Little! What're you, four feet tall? Little gnome in the baseball cap!" Jake guffawed, never shy about ribbing his pals. The baseball hat in question fell off, Dirk helplessly watching as he resigned himself to the manhandling.

"I'm five foot six, it's not that short-" Dirk inisted. He despised how pleading his voice sounded. To his utter dismay, Jake laughed harder but at the very least released the poor city boy.

"Ree-lax, Dirk, my good bosom buddy! I'm sorry for giving you the ole one-two roughhouse just there, but I simply got too excited when I saw your visage, why, my hands acted out all their own!" Jake slugged Dirk on the arm. It was probably a light tap to Jake, but Dirk hissed in pain.

It was apparent that Jake had... Boundary issues. He was always clearly a kinetic sort of dude, always fiddling with things when Dirk was on calls with him, and his childhood away from civilization rendered him somewhat incompetent at understanding the "personal bubble" concept. The problem wasn't that Dirk minded, it was that Dirk liked the horseplay a tad too much.

"How was the boat ride in, Dirk?" Jake asked as he turned around, waving for Dirk to follow. Dirk desperately tried not to glance at Jake's ass, failing miserably in the first moments. Jake had wrapped his rear end in an absurdly snug pair of shorts which clung to his glutes like a thin film of molasses rolling down a particularly curvaceous spoon. Dirk coughed loudly before he was able to react.

"Smooth," he said, lust coating his words.

"Great!" Jake said, obliviously missing any nuance. Dirk was grateful in that moment that Jake was about as perceptive as a satchel of rations.

"Is there a... Path?" Dirk asked hesitantly as Jake blazed forth, away from the docks and into the bare woods. Dirk wasn't dressed for hiking, adorned in a loose-fitting button up and khaki pants, shades and hat notwithstanding. His shoes, too, were impractical, worn converse sneakers that wouldn't weather a shift at Starbucks, let alone the naked jungle.

"Sure, my good bro! It's the path we'll blaze our own selves!" Jake said cheerfully, stepping over a log, his impressive legs glistening in the tropical sun. "Let's be quick! The fauna on this island gets pretty big and mighty dangerous! When we get back to the house, I'll wrangle up some grub for the both of us."

By the time the "path" had been treaded and the duo emerged from the woods into the clearing where Jake's house was, Dirk was covered in leaves and burrs as well as several minute cuts and tears. Jake looked around at his guest, eyes widening.

"Shoot McGoot, my guy! Are you okay? Looks like the woods took a bite out of you!" Jake approached Dirk, inspecting him. Dirk felt his cheeks flush. Far be it from him to admit any shortcoming, Dirk scoffed, arms crossed.

"I'm good," he said defensively. Even besides the cuts, Dirk felt... Strange. He had envisioned this meeting differently in his brain, Jake on Skype was so different to Jake in Person, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Sure- Jake was HOT, but between the patronizing and the size difference, Dirk was losing much of the safety that online interactions afforded. Jake could sense something wrong, but the galoot didn't have the words for it, so Jake made his best smile and simply waved Dirk indoors.

The house wasn't the most conventional. For starters, it was in the shape of an orb from the outside and very cozy on the inside. It had a retrofuturistic look and seemed to lack the usual amenities except for a little table. For a guy who lived alone, it was pretty clean, too. No, Dirk thought, for JAKE it was pretty clean.

"I'm afraid there's a limited menu compared to what the likes of you are used to, Dirk old fruit!" Jake said, pulling out a chair politely for Dirk. "But it'll all have the rustic charm of the jungle! What're you feeling?"

Dirk sat in the pulled out chair, silently, eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses. Dirk was of two minds. On the one hand, Jake was everything he imagined and more- A strapping island man with huge muscles and a roguish smile. On the other hand, this was a lot to take in, especially considering how overbearing Jake was being. Dirk didn't like being treated like some kid and Jake, whether he knew it or not, was doing just that. Dirk, however, didn't have the words to express this, so instead of trying to articulate himself, he instead did what he did best and tried to shove the feeling deep deep down inside his skinny little body.

"Anything's good," Dirk finally responded. Jake laughed a nervous little laugh.

"Okay! I'll just fry up some seafood." Jake bit his lip. "Say, is everything okay, Dirk?"

"S'fine," Dirk said, face barely bothering to twitch.

Jake didn't like being walled out. He wasn't used to this from Dirk, he'd spent so long learning all of his intricate subtleties, but now that they were in person, he was more illegible than ever! Jake, however, didn't have the words to express this, so instead of trying to manage some way to say what he felt, Jake did what he did best. Slap a big, fake smile on his face and play dumb.

"Okay! Must've been a long boat trip!"

A phrase hung in the air between the two young men for different reasons. "This was a mistake." Dirk and Jake were both meeting in person for the first time, and of course, since it wasn't flawless and perfect in every way imagineable, they were both dismayed. Let down by impossible expectations.

Jake served the food after a long silence, cut only by the sizzling of a cookalizer. It wasn't the most fancy-looking meal, but what it lacked in presentation, it made up for in terms of the smell. It was also massive, like Jake promised, a tuna that was about as long as Jake's pythonesque arms.

"This is... Good." Dirk was happy to be able to pay a compliment in earnest, even though the miasma still hung over them. Jake already had three bites down his hatch.

"Mm- Thanks!" Jake smiled another big fake smile, but this time he at least felt something under it. They both felt awkward as the meal proceeded in silence. Outside, birds cawed and leaves rustled. Dirk struggled to make conversation.

"Do the sounds ever bother you?" he asked, unable to match Jake's prodigious appetite.

"No way! Dead silence grates on me. It's better to be surrounded by noise." Jake smiled. Dirk didn't know how to respond to that. For the first time in Dirk's life, he felt like there was a massive rift between them, bigger than the gap of space they'd both endured for so long. A gap that Dirk wasn't equipped to bridge. Like the both of them were at two ends of a chasm with just planks and boards, fruitlessly trying to close the space.

"How's Roxy?" Jake offered, trying to spark conversation again.

"Fine," replied Dirk, unable to come up with anything but the lonely syllable. Jake opened his mouth as if to reply before shutting it.

Before long, Jake stood to dump his plate into the garbage bag.

"Where does the trash go?" Dirk asked, watching him.

"Well, granny and I used to lug it up the mountain and into the volcano!" Jake said cheerfully, offering to take Dirk's plate, too. Dirk laughed as though Jake were joking.

"Wait, seriously?"

"Why yes! I'm not sure how, er- Eco-friendly that approach would be if the island was more populous, but it suits the both of us just dandy!" Jake noticed Dirk's fish was only half-eaten. He didn't mention it as he dumped Dirk's plate. "That's where Granny went when she died, too!"

The comfort was immediately sucked out of the room. Jake winced, knowing immediately he'd said too much.

"Sorr-" Dirk made a hasty apology before Jake loudly interrupted.

"Let's go for a walk! I'll show you around!"

Before Dirk could protest, they were out the door, tugged by Jake. Dirk followed along, still thoroughly confused, a pit welling up in his chest. Did he say something wrong? Was Jake angry with him? He felt like he was walking through a field of land mines.

"C'mon, I'll take you down to the lake! It's awful pretty in the summer time, then we can-" Jake spoke loudly to try and drown out the cloud surrounding the duo.

"Jake," Dirk said in a tone of voice that made Jake's stomach turn. Jake couldn't let Dirk finish, it would annihilate the mood.

"N-no, bro, it's okay! You don't like the lake? We can look at the ruins! That'll be fun, right, Dirk?"

"Jake..." Dirk repeated, more pityingly. Jake's throat siezed around his words. "This was... A mistake."

"M-mistake?" Jake stammered. Dirk was struck by how... Unfamiliar Jake looked. It was uncanny. They'd known each other for so long over the internet, it was almost as though the Jake standing in front of him was a different person entirely. A stranger that Dirk didn't know.

"Of course it was. Neither of us were ready for this," Dirk said desperately. He didn't know why he was saying all this. It seemed so unlike him, so honest and weird. "I should just call for a boat and leave in the morning. I'm sorry."

Jake looked Dirk over. They'd known each other so long through the computer screen but never like this. Jake's grip on Dirk's wrist squeezed tighter, as though he could press familiarity from it, but when none came, he let go. Dirk rubbed his wrist as though he too hoped it would magically fix all this.

Dirk recalled the amount of times they'd said "we'll meet someday" to each other, the hope in their hearts, but now that they had, it was all a mistake. As though the hope was what they'd actually been in love with instead of one another. Dirk and Jake stood facing each other, unspoken truths boiling under each man's unflinching mask.

"So that's... It?" Jake asked, rubbing his arm. Dirk no longer felt something stir in him when he looked at that bicep.

"Yeah. Jake, look-" Dirk felt something break inside him. A dam shattered within him. For the first time in his life, he couldn't push it down.

"Dirk-!" Jake said, distraught, but it was too late. Dirk was on a roll, unable to keep himself in.

"Jake, I don't know what we were playing at. We were dumb kids, and we haven't outgrown our wide-eyed optimism. We're not the people we thought we were, Jake-"

"Dirk, please-!" Jake said again, but Dirk cut him off, tears stinging his eyes.

"I could never tell you this before, but...!"

"Dirk, look out for that giant eagle!"

"Huh-?"

Dirk could scarcely turn around before a twenty-meter long bird wrapped its talons around Dirk's waist, carrying him helplessly off into the air.

Months in the past, Dirk sat in his bedroom, excitedly waiting for Jake to pick up the phone. Dirk's room was a mess and particularly barren lately, since he'd sold some of his gear for a certain surprise clutched in his hands. As soon as he heard Jake pick up, Dirk spoke before Jake could make a greeting.

"Jake!" Dirk said with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

"Ho ho!" Dirk heard Jake's voice like honey in his ears. "Goodness, I doubt I've ever heard you express any emotion beyond 'stoic understanding,' and now here you are giving me 'elated whimsy!' What's gotten into you, you old meatloaf?"

"I got the tickets." Dirk spoke breathlessly. Jake didn't respond for a moment, but Dirk soon heard his long-time bro break out into a paul of glee, laughing.

"You got them?! Golly, Dirk, they must've cost an arm and a friggin' leg!"

"Literally," Dirk said, recalling his many prosthetic commissions. Jake made another adorable noise of happiness and Dirk felt his heart squeeze. They were finally making good on the promise they'd both made time and time again! They were going to meet in person. In that moment, both men were filled with boundless love.

And to think, now Dirk was being carried to a mountaintop nest by an oversized bird of prey.

"You scurrilous fiend!" Jake cried from far below, running after the beast on foot, shaking his fist in the air. The bird was flying over a grassy field, having cleared the jungle, and Dirk was surprised Jake was able to keep up. Well- Dirk WOULD be impressed if he could feel any emotion besides abject terror.

Dirk didn't know whether to squirm or to hold still, as on the one hand he was being carried uncomfortably tightly, but on the other, he was nearly a hundred meters in the air. All he could think to do was howl.

"JAKE!" he cried, his call seeming to invigorate the burly lad giving chase. The bird thankfully wasn't in flight for long, lighting on top of a steep, craggy hill where its nest was. The claws released and Dirk screamed as he fell unceremoniously in the downy nest, rolling a few times before slamming into the nest wall with an "oof." Inside the nest were four eggs, all about Dirk's height. With some difficulty, Dirk was able to climb the nest's side, heart hammering as the bird circled the nest overhead.

"I'm a-comin', Dirk! Just sit tight, my friend!" Jake growled loudly from the base of the crag. He climbed the sheer face of the rocky hill, knife between his teeth. The bird screeched from above, coming to land on its nest, glowering down at Dirk.

"Uh-" Dirk swallowed as he slid back into the nest, jostled by the impact of the bird landing. "H-hate to speed you up, there, pal, but- Be quick!" Dirk hollered, turning to face the bird again. The thing was alabaster-white like the rest of Jake's island's fauna, eyes dark red. "Hi," he said, trying to stay calm. "You, uh- I like your feathers?"

The eagle wasn't amused by Dirk's placation, Dirk narrowly diving out of the way to miss the chomping beak of the bird. Looks like Dirk had been brought here to be a meal. Not ideal.

"Hang on buddy! Juke it out! Huff- Huff-" Jake was strapping, but climbing a massive rock-hill with no gear was making him exhausted. His grip slipped and he slid a few meters down the cliffside, grunting. No! He couldn't let this rapscallion make off with his friend! Jake felt his second wind take hold and his hands gripped the rocks anew.

In the nest, Dirk was playing a fun game of "dodge the beak," using his nimble size to his advantage. Even so, he was growing tired more quickly than the bird was.

"Jake!" he managed to shout over the screeches of the increasingly irate animal. "Jake, if you can hear me and I get eaten by this bird- I love you!"

Life-and-death made Dirk's hangups seem so trivial, words pouring out of his mouth now that he'd never have admitted before, adrenaline coursing through him.

"I love you too, Dirk! But do you mean in a friendly way or a homosexual way?" Jake called up, voice choked hoarse by over-exertion.

"I don't-" Dirk narrowly avoided the beak, only to be pinned in place by the bird's talons. "I guess like- I- I love you, in a lot of ways, but- Are you like, into dudes?" To Dirk, who imagined he was about to be eaten, this detail seemed life or death important. The bird opened its beak, maw racing towards Dirk, who closed his eyes behind his triangle shades.

"I AM into dudes!" Jake said triumphantly, leaping over the side of the nest. Dirk, his eyes closed, only heard Jake's miraculous voice and the sound of his beefy fist striking the bird's beak, who swawked in dismay. Dirk opened his eyes in time to see Jake whip a pistol out of his shorts, blasting the bird right in the peepers! The bird cried out in pain, flying into the air, knocking the boys over into the nest.

"Dirk!" Jake said, hurrying to his side. Jake and Dirk were both panting and exhausted, Jake hefting Dirk into his arms. "You're okay! God, I was so-"

Dirk cut Jake off with a kiss. The feeling of melancholy reluctance from just moments ago faded away almost instantly as the two felt each other's panting bodies pressed against the other, breathing as one, lips locked together.

===

"And that's how we met!" Jake finished, grinning. The fire crackles to their left, silhouetting Jake and Dirk's dumbfounded guests. "Well, in person, that is."

"You forgot the ending," Dirk says playfully, squirming to get more comfortable in Jake's lap. Jake smacks his own forehead.

"Ah, right!" He says. "Then, naturally, we copulated in the bird's nest."

"So romantic," Dirk finishes, his voice softening.

"That's-" June breaks the horrifying silence with a halfhearted statement. "Nice!" Dave, Rose, Terezi, and the rest of the guests nod hastily to keep the story from carrying on any longer.

"All I asked, though, Jake dear, was if you could pass the salt," Jane says miserably from a little ways down the table. Jake and Dirk laugh, passing their friend the table salt, their laughter mixing into the cold air around them, a cozy presence, a love that almost never was, if not for a horrible bird.


End file.
